The Billionaire's Bride of Convenience(45)

‘Someone always finds out, Hugh.’





Not if I can help it, Hugh determined on his drive back to the office. When this was all over—and it would be once Kathryn inherited Val’s house—he didn’t want to have to answer some journalist’s stupid questions. He wanted to forget that Kathryn Hart had ever existed, and just get back to his life as it had once been.





She’d caused him more trouble than any woman ever had. Hell, he’d even started thinking that he might have actually fallen in love with her.





This patently ridiculous idea had come over him when he’d been making love to her. No, she’d been making love to him, very late last Sunday. He’d reached down to run his fingers through her hair. Her head had lifted, their eyes had met and pow! He’d been zapped by an emotion previously unknown to him. A violently possessive, powerfully protective, infinitely loving feeling which had shocked him so much that he’d pushed her head back down almost roughly, not stopping her as he usually did.





It had proved a relief, afterwards, that she’d refused to stay another night, Hugh taking her home shortly after that episode. He’d needed time to think.





By morning Hugh had made the difficult decision to call a halt to their affair. He still wanted her like crazy, but at the time he had wanted more to find out if his experience the previous evening was the same kind of delusion which regularly took possession of his father. He reasoned that if he ever looked at Kathryn and was consumed by the same emotions when not engaged in sexual activity, then that would be conclusive.





The next day at work, Hugh had been perversely dismayed when he’d walked into the office and felt not some overwhelming wave of love, but that same old irritating surge of desire. He’d been even more irritated by Kathryn’s reaction when he told her there would be no more sex till they were married.





If he’d been secretly thinking—or foolishly hoping—that she might be falling for him, then he’d been dead wrong.





But brother, her offhand attitude had tempted him severely to retract what he’d said and demand she follow him into the inner sanctum immediately, where he would shag her silly on his father’s desk.





Only his pride had stopped him.





Things had gone from bad to worse after that, his desire for her mounting each day, his mind a mess, his sleep constantly interrupted by wildly erotic dreams.





No wonder his golf game had been pathetic this morning.





Kathryn must have slept well, however, Hugh noted ruefully when he strode into the office just after midday. She looked fine, and sexy as all hell in that black suit which had always tormented him, the one he’d fantasised stripping off her so many times. She was wearing a silky red cami under it today, and her lips were glossed the same colour.





Why he was keeping to his stupid no-sex rule he had no idea. What was the point? It was perfectly obvious that he hadn’t fallen for her. And she certainly had fallen for him.





When her eyes lifted to meet his, they were nothing like the way her eyes had been with him last weekend. They didn’t caress him, or cling to his. The only emotion they betrayed was curiosity.





‘What did your friends say?’ she asked straight away. ‘Were they shocked?’





‘Suspicious more than shocked,’ he retorted. ‘Of you.’





‘Me!’





‘They obviously think you’re a gold-digger,’ he said, and strode on into his father’s office.





Kathryn followed him. ‘Didn’t you explain about Val’s will and everything?’





‘Of course. They didn’t buy it.’





‘Oh, dear.’





‘It doesn’t matter what they think, Kathryn,’ he said impatiently. ‘What matters is what I think. And I know you’re no gold-digger. Now, I’m going upstairs to have a shower and change. I’m all sweaty after golf.’





‘Your mother called,’ she said before he could escape.





‘What about?’





‘She complained that your mobile was turned off.’





Hugh sighed, pulled his phone out and turned it back on.





‘Anything else?’ he asked as he returned the phone to his pocket.





‘She said lunch tomorrow was back on. She’s booked some place that’s within walking distance and she’ll be here to pick you up at twelve-thirty.’





‘Fine. Any other messages whilst we’re at it?’





‘No. Nothing important. So did you win? At golf?’